Okay, so, I have an HP Pavillion.
With it being an HP, it didnt come with any XP Cds. It only has a recovery partition that has the WinXP disk image on it.

A little while ago, I installed Ubuntu to dual-boot with WinXP.
However, I wanted to remove it now, because I want the 80 GB it allowed to linux back to my Windows partition.

I was wondering how I could un-install Ubuntu and restore that 80 GB back to Windows without having to completely format my hard drive.

If it helps anyone, My partitions are as follows:

WinXP 62.47 GB NTFS
Windows Recovery Partition 4.86 GB FAT32
Primary Linux Partition 32.69 GB EXT3
Linux Swap Partition 27.65 GB linux-swap

I know the linux doesnt add to 80 GB, but theres 21.38 unallocated drive space.

Thx in advanced

-John

You can just reformat that 80 GB partition as ntfs and allow Windows to give it a drive name, and have two Windows partitions if you want. This way, you can use the second one to store data, and if the first one fails, the second one is still recoverable. As far as combining your current partition with the Linux partition, you should be able to use something like Partition Magic to do that. Just make sure to back up your data beforehand--it doesn't always work, I'm afraid.

Well, if i did do that, which i wouldnt know how to, wouldnt there be a problem with the boot loader GRUB?

Nope - don't do that. Especially if you are using grub as the boot loader.
You'll need to sort out the loader first, else you won't be able to boot anything. This is normally done from the (XP) CD using recovery console - can you even run Recovery Console if you don't have the CD ???.
Then you can worry about reclaiming the space.

Edit: O.K., it looks like you can install Recovery console in XP - see the Help search on the "Start" menu.
Erk - just thought ... this might need the CD as well. Bummer.

I'd install it and boot into it to make sure, then run fixmbr.
Reboot to make sure it looks like the XP loader, then just delete the Linux partitions. The gparted CD will do the NTFS resizing for you - else Partition Magic should handle it also if you have that.

Well what do you mean by "recovery console"?
It being an HP machine, it didnt come with an XP cd, just the recovery partition.
That partition is only avaliable at startup by pressing F5. When the recovery is run, it gives only two options- destructive recovery; which basically formats the drive, and reinstalls windows; and non-destructive recovery, which deletes all the current changes made by the previous user, and reinstalls the core applications.

Sorry, but I cant gather what you mean with "it". And i dont have Partition Magic.

When I was logged into Ubuntu (im in XP right now) i looked in gparted and tried resizing my windows parition with the 21 GB of unallocated drive space, but it had the resize/move option unavaliable.

Sorry - I add the "erk" line later, and it threw things out a bit.

The "it" was in reference to Recovery Console - once it's installed, it is added as another option on the XP boot.ini Hence you'd be able to boot grub to select XP, to get another menu - including Recovery Console.
As for gparted, go get the liveCD - only about 50-60 Meg.

Wouldnt I need the XP CD to install the Recovery console?

Sorry, its 1 Am and my brain is a little out of whack right now.

There's no need for Partition Magic or GParted here, you can delete the partition using built in Windows tools.

In Windows, right-click on "My Computer" and seleck "Manage", then go to the "Disk management" option.

Doesnt work since theres already four partitions, and it wont let me add the unallocated drive space to windows. Also, if i just deleted the linux partitions, there would be an error with GRUB, and itd freeze during startup.

Wouldn't you get exactly the same issues if you used GParted or Partition Magic?

Probably. But if i did do that, delete the linux partitions in Windows, how do i solve the grub issue without an XP cd?

You definitely need to fix the XP MBR before you delete the linux partition. I googled for "restore windows XP mbr without CD" and found the following link:

http://www.softwaretipsandtricks.com...out-xp-cd.html

It seems to offer a simple solution.

After your mbr is fixed in windows, you'll have to use knoppix or some other bootable OS with qtparted on it to resize your original windows partition to take up the whole disk. You can't resize an NTFS partition from within windows using the disk management tool. Also, another poster was correct in saying that you can just delete the Linux partition from disk management and then reformat it using NTFS. You would just have two NTFS partitions instead of one which can actually come in handy...

Thanks.

And which should I do first, delete the partitions and make a new windows partition, or run this clone fixmbr?

Edit:
The program didnt run for me.
I double clicked on it after the download. It brought up command prompt with various things displayed. Then it opened a webpage, similar to a README. Once it opened that webpage, command prompt close. So i tried running the Program again, and it just opens command prompt and then closes it within a second, not letting me do anything in the program.

I do have administrative privellages.

Edit 2:
Okay, I get it now. But the question still stands, which first? Delete partitions, or fix mbr?

See my post above - fix the loader first.
Always leave yourself a fallback.